Katelin Parsons, a research scholar from the University of Manitoba is collecting handwritten documentation in Icelandic for an online catalogue called the Fragile Heritage Project.

Parsons, who lives in Iceland, is at the New Iceland Heritage Museum on scholarship to translate and carefully curate each individual document.

Items include books with handmade bindings, letters, diaries, poems, records of weather events and lesser known, but popular romance sagas, each individually transcribed. Some are water damaged from the ocean voyage to Canada, some have pictures. One is stitched together with care.

“In Icelandic culture, I think it was really important to have books,” noted Parsons.

Since the printing press wasn’t invented until the 1800s, books were painstakingly copied by hand and circulated. Most were religious texts, “Written with the idea it be shared,” said Parsons.

“People were very social,” she added. “It was really hard to lose contact with your family when you came to another country.”

Parsons describes the scene: Since it was really dark in Iceland in the winter, there was maybe one light. Everyone would get together in the sitting room,” and read letters or tell stories. “Other families would tell how your relative was,” she said.

There was no mass production of books and no central distribution system. “People would write (letters, poems and sagas) to read aloud. All are so special and really unique.”

In fact, Parsons remarks that people worked in “scribal networks.” One manuscript from 1834 is printed in Gothic script. Others date to the medieval era in the 1500s when Old Icelandic was in use.

After 1550, the language was updated with more contemporary spelling. After 1700, the spelling varies per writer and reflects phonetic pronunciation.

Since the sagas are 90% anonymous, the authors of most texts are unknown. However, “You really hear their voice and how they’re expressing themselves,” exclaimed Parsons. Parsons shares one fantastic saga with a very fitting lesson.

A huge, proud man doesn’t want to learn the new language. His evil friend promises to translate for him, and then tries to steal his identity. No one understands the foreigner, but a princess figures out the evil friend is a fraud. She unites with the proud man who turns out to be a prince and the evil friend is exiled.

This lesson applies to immigrants today. Beware the language barrier and opportunists.